Huffington Magazine Issue 19 | Page 37

ABOUT 22 MILES NORTHEAST OF LAREDO, TEXAS in an otherwise desolate and unincorporated stretch of Webb County, a roughed-out grid of unnamed dirt roads cuts through a maze of half-built cinderblock homes and dilapidated trailers. ¶ Israel Reyna, a local attorney and advocate for the poor, has been driving me through this and similar communities, and we’ve stopped amid THIS PAGE AND PREVIOUS PAGE: MATT RAINWATERS A “restricted” sign with instructions hangs from the entrance to a colonia resident’s property in Texas.